Table Of ContentS E P T E M B E R S W O O N
William C. Kashatus
foreword by Gerald Early
S E P T E M B E R
S W O O N
Richie Allen, the ’64 Phillies, and Racial Integration
A KEYSTONE BOOK
THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS
UNIVERSITY PARK, PENNSYLVANIA
a keystone book
A Keystone Book is so designated to
distinguish it from the typical scholarly monograph
that a university press publishes. It is a book intended
to serve the citizens of Pennsylvania by educating them
and others, in an entertaining way, about aspects of the
history, culture, society, and environment of the state
as part of the Middle Atlantic region.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kashatus, William C., 1959–
September swoon : Richie Allen, the ’64Phillies, and racial integration /
William C. Kashatus ; Foreword by Gerald Early.
p. cm.
“A Keystone Book.”
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-271-02333-3(cloth : alk. paper)
1. Philadelphia Phillies (Baseball team).
2. Baseball—Pennsylvania—Philadelphia—History—20th century.
3. Allen, Dick.
4. Discrimination in sports—Pennsylvania—Philadelphia.
I. Title.
GV875.P45 K275 2003
796.357´64´0974811—dc22
2003016988
Copyright © 2004The Pennsylvania State University
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press,
University Park, PA 16802-1003
The Pennsylvania State University Press is a member of the
Association of American University Presses.
It is the policy of
The Pennsylvania State University Press
to use acid-free paper. Publications on uncoated
stock satisfy the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences—
Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Material,
ANSI Z39.48–1992.
for my son ben,
who brought happiness after a devastating loss
CONTENTS
Foreword by Gerald Early ix
Acknowledgments xv
Introduction 1
1 A Shameful Past 9
2 Integrating the Phillies 39
3 The Spring of ’64 67
4 On Top of the National League 91
5 September Swoon 121
6 Seasons of Frustration 147
7 Breakup 179
Conclusion 201
Appendixes 207
A. What Happened to the 1964 Phillies 207
B. Individual Statistics for the 1964 Phillies 217
C. The 1964 National League Race 221
Notes 223
Selected Bibliography 249
Index 251
vii
FOREWORD BY GERALD EARLY
To have grown up in Philadelphia in the 1950s and 1960s, as I did, was to
experience the American city, American life itself, on the cusp of dramatic
change. The rise of reformist liberals in Philadelphia’s politics in the 1950s
coupled with a growing black activism in the city in the 1960s, particularly
under the leadership of local NAACP president Cecil B. Moore, were the
manifestation of one sort of change. The arc of the career of legendary cop
Frank Rizzo, who went from being the “Cisco Kid” of the streets to police
commissioner and eventually, in 1971, to mayor, was change as well, or the
change that change produced. Few people who lived in most big American
cities at the time could say that they were not cursed with having to live in
an interesting time. Ironically, one could hardly sense this change, in many
respects, even as one was living through such strange seasons that would
disconnect us all from the past while leaving us unable to discern the future.
I can remember distinctly reading passages from the Bible in my elemen-
tary school classes and hearing them read before our weekly “Assemblies”
and can vividly recall that teachers could and did use corporal punishment
to chastise children. When I tell my children this, they think I grew up in
a more primitive and even quaint time. Actually, nothing could be further
from the truth. Reading the Bible in school probably did me at least this
level of good: that I got to read that book at all in a setting that was not
related to church, so I could think about it differently while learning to
absorb its mighty language. I do not recall corporal punishment with any
fondness at all. I thought it brutal and, perhaps oddly, a rather sensational
way to discipline a child. I did not think it was terribly effective. Nor did
I think that my teachers cared more about me because they were willing to
slap me around. But I do not think, on the other hand, that they cared about
me any less. (At least, those of us who went to public school thought, we
ix
FOREWORD
don’t get knocked around as much as the kids in Catholic school do by the
nuns and priests.) I never feared any teacher’s threat of physical violence
nearly as much as I feared some of my classmates. And since it was common
in the world I grew up in for parents to smack their children around, why
not the teachers? There was something that was stabilizing and reassur-
ing about the exercise of this type of authority. But change was on the
way and by the time I had Wnished junior high school, Bible reading and
corporal punishment were things of the past.
I grew up in South Philadelphia, near the Italian Market on Ninth
Street, in the very heart of an ethnic mosaic of working-class Italians
(Mario Lanza had grown up two blocks from where I lived), Irish Catholics,
Jews, and, of course, African Americans. What I loved about South Phila-
delphia, indeed about Philadelphia as a whole, was the fact that the city,
and especially this particular section of it, was built for pedestrians, made
to be walked in. What I did for hours and hours in my youth was simply
walk around all parts of South Philadelphia, sometimes alone, sometimes
with friends. Had it not been for the terror of street gangs, I would have
walked even more in the city than I did. It was one of the few charms that
the city held for me as a child, other than riding public transportation. A
surprising number of adults in my neighborhood did not own cars; many
women particularly, including my mother, did not even know how to drive.
I saw the Wrst housing projects built in the neighborhood (the South-
wark Plaza Projects), and even remember that when they Wrst opened many
whites lived there. Of course, they did not stay for long, but in the Wrst year
or two those projects were the most integrated community I had seen or
have seen since. (I thought it would be like that forever, for I could not, in
my childhood, understand the differences that deWned the races.) A certain
balance existed among the various racial and ethnic groups, and while there
were eruptions of violence, the mere telling of which made me tremble with
loathing and a sense of entrapment, by and large these groups respected
each other’s space and even managed to get along with each other in
ways that were positively inspiring. In the summer day camps, at Nebinger
School and at the House of Industry, I remember Italian children and black
children playing together our various games of “Dead-Box,” “Checkers,” or
“Uncle Wiggly” or riding on the swings or the maypole or playing volley-
ball, reading comic books together, eating slices of cold watermelon with
sticky Wngers, singing camp songs together with nary a word about how
we were all different from each other or needed role models from our own
group. We quite understood what made us different, but we were mostly
x
